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Insights from Award-Winning Journalist

Tom Plate

The Fine Art

of the
Political
Interview
and the Inside Stories behind
the ‘Giants of Asia’ conversations
© 2015 Thomas Gordon Plate

Published by Marshall Cavendish Editions

An imprint of Marshall Cavendish International
1 New Industrial Road, Singapore 536196

All interviews by Tom Plate are and originally were the copyright of Thomas Gordon Plate,
or of the Pacific Perspectives Media Center, Professor Plate’s nonprofit in Los Angeles. Any other
fragmentary usage, in prose or in generic pictures, is asserted via Creative Commons License and
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License. All excerpts from Personal Impressions, the
collection of essays of Sir Isaiah Berlin, are from the 1980 Viking Press edition edited by Henry
Hardy, with an introduction by Noel Annan. The original book copyright was 1949. The added
Introduction copyright ©1980 by Noel Annan. All fragments used from this book are permitted
under Creative Commons License and Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License.

Cover photo of Tom Plate by Jon Rou/Loyola Marymount University.

Back cover photo by Ashley Plate.

All rights reserved

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted,

in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the copyright owner. Requests for permission should be addressed
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National Library Board Singapore Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

Plate, Tom, author.
The fine art of the political interview : and the inside stories behind the ‘Giants of Asia’
conversations / Tom Plate. – Singapore : Marshall Cavendish Editions,­[2015]
pages cm
Includes index.
ISBN : 978-981-4634-26-7 (paperback)

Interviewing in journalism. 2. Politicians – Asia - Interviews. I. Title.

II. Plate, Tom. Giants of Asia.

PN4784.I6
070.43 — dc23 OCN906658103

Printed in Singapore by Fabulous Printers Pte Ltd

 To all my journalistic counterparts in Asia, trying their best
to bring to their own people, and to those of us
looking in from far away, the truest and most important stories
of their era and their lands and their citizens.
 Contents

A Selection of Critical Praise for Tom Plate’s Books vii

Author’s Notes xiii

1 • IN PRAISE OF CONVERSATIONS BETWEEN

CONSENTING ADULTS • 01
“Wise men speak because they have something to say.”

2 • ON THE NATURE OF THE POLITICAL INTERVIEW • 11

“When the President does it, that means it is not illegal.”

3 • ON SURVIVING THE CELEBRITY INTERVIEW • 23

“Don’t just stand there looking skinny!”

4 • ON WHY SOME INTERVIEWS ARE TOUGHER

THAN OTHERS • 37
“…Hope you won’t do to our Tony
what you did to their John!”

5 • ON KEEPING YOUR INTERVIEW CLOSE

TO YOUR INSTINCTS • 57
“We finish tonight.”

6 • ON THE NEED FOR A KILLER QUESTION

IN YOUR BACK POCKET • 75
“So now that you are the PM, will you legalize Viagra?”
 7 • ON WHY THEY WANT TO TALK BUT FIND IT
HARD TO SAY MUCH • 93
“Any South Korean foreign minister would have the credentials.”

8 • ON HIT AND RUN INTERVIEWS —

AND SMART LADIES WHO LUNCH • 127
“Bray it again, Sam!”

9 • ON QUESTIONS YOU WISHED YOU HAD NEVER ASKED • 149

“These are for the CIA, right?”

10 • ON INTERVIEWING THE LONELY POLITICAL EXILE • 169

“When will you be leaving?”

11 • ON WHAT TO SAY WHEN THEY SAY

THEY DIDN’T SAY THAT • 195
“We act as if nothing happened…”

12 • ON WHAT TO DO WHEN THE TABLES ARE TURNED • 205

“Whom do you like better, Mahathir or Lee Kuan Yew?”

CONCLUSION • 219
ON THE NEAR-PERFECT INTERVIEWER
“I’m ready for my close up.”

Giving Thanks • 230

Index • 232
About the Author • 236
A Selection of Critical Praise
for Tom Pl ate’s Book s

Confessions of an American Media Man (2006)

“If Tom ‘tells all’ in his journalism classes in the same ‘Front Page’ style,
half of UCLA should be auditing Professor Plate.”
— James Brady in FORBES

Conversations with Lee Kuan Yew (2010)

“I don’t agree with all of it, but that is to be expected [given] the
Western journalist’s exaggeration of eccentricity. But on the whole, he
got my point of view across.”
— Lee Kuan Yew at the book’s official launch party

“There are two types of courage among journalists. Some might

risk their lives crossing paths with an IED on an arid back road in
Afghanistan. Many fewer risk their reputation by going against the
herd of conventional opinion. Tom Plate, America’s only syndicated
columnist who focuses on Asia and a former editorial director of the
Los Angeles Times, has taken the second risk in his Conversations with
Lee Kuan Yew. And it has been a risk well worth taking.”
— Columnist Nathan Gardels
Huffington Post

“This book is a fascinating read.... Lee Kuan Yew is a great teacher...”

— Goh Chok Tong,
former Singapore Prime Minister, 1990–2004
viii The Fine Art of the Politic a l Interv iew

“You have done a superb job of capturing the many faces of this
extraordinary man, whom I have known and admired for some fifty
years. That he is the first to be honored in the … ‘Giants of Asia’ series
seems only right.”
— Dr Henry A. Kissinger,
former U.S. Secretary of State, 1973–77

“… a scintillating insight into the private — and brutally candid —

beliefs and thoughts of the 86-year-old Minister Mentor on a wide
range of topics, from his temper and children to various countries and
his ‘authoritarian’ ways. … These are captured in a writing style that is
fast-paced and conversational over 24 chapters that are peppered with
Mr Plate’s views.”
— Zakir Hussain in
The Straits Times (of Singapore)

Conversations with Mahathir Mohamad (2011)

“As with Prof. Tom Plate’s first book on Lee Kuan Yew, do not expect
a dull moment in this book.”
— A reader’s rave review (India)

“Plate’s books … demonstrate a fascinating insight into [political

leaders’] thinking and offer some explanations for their policy-
decisions which continue to affect the social, political and economic
circumstances in these two neighboring Southeast Asian countries.”
— Ishtiaq Hossain,
International Islamic University, Malaysia
 A Selection of Critical Praise for Tom Plate’s Books ix

Conversations with Thaksin (2011)

“… Plate’s ‘Gee shucks, did they really say that about you?’ style has a
huge upside. His subjects open up to him in a way they may not have
intended to, and the insights the reader gains into their characters are
considerable; to the point that Plate’s books, for all their faults, will be
incomparable tools for historians, biographers and anyone who ever
wants to figure out what made these men, who do deserve to be called
‘Giants of Asia’, tick.”
— Sholto Byrnes, The National (Abu Dhabi)

“The author is able to provide the layman reader with a broad context
of Thaksin the man and politician while zooming in an historian/
journalist approach to give depth to content. This book is easily
accessible to readers using a clear journalistic style.”
— Professor William J. Jones,
Mahidol University International College, Thailand

Conversations with Ban Ki-moon (2011)

“…candid, free-flowing, probing, thorough … Plate’s biggest
achievement lies in his ability to contextualize and humanize a larger-
than-life figure — an accomplishment to which every biographer
aspires…”
— Mia Warren in ASIAN REVIEW OF BOOKS

“... This is a very readable book and, not surprisingly given the author,
very well written.”
— Former Fletcher School Dean Stephen Bosworth, former U.S. special
envoy to North Korea and U.S. ambassador to South Korea
x The Fine Art of the Politic a l Interv iew

“Since Ban became Secretary General in 2007, many books have been
published but without interviews or consultations with him. But this
book is solely based on exclusive conversations with Ban…. It is full of
inspiring quotes that reflect Ban’s philosophical thoughts…. The book
elaborates on Plate’s up close and personal observations and touches on
important international issues. It allows readers to know his personal,
human side through his words.”
— Chung Ah-young,
The Korea Times

“I have known Ban Ki-moon since we were both foreign ministers. I

feel that I understand him even more now after I have read this unique
book. The book takes the readers deep inside the inner thoughts of
a man who has described his job as the most impossible job in the
world. It also offers a rare look at the inner workings of the United
Nations. This combination makes the book a ‘must read’ for students
of multilateral diplomacy. This book is not a public relations exercise
for anyone. Tom Plate is a tough and experienced interviewer, with a
gentle touch.”
— Kantathi Suphamongkhon, 39th Minister of Foreign Affairs of
Thailand and Senior Fellow at the Burkle Center for International
Relations at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA)

In the Middle of the Future (2013)

“Tom Plate is the only one who has the intellectual capacity to not
treat each nook and corner of that huge land mass we sometimes
haphazardly call ‘Asia’ as just one big chunk of landmass. He is the only
one who has the insight to see all 50 shades of Asia. He is the only one
 A Selection of Critical Praise for Tom Plate’s Books xi

who has the guts and wits to be nuanced and say it like it is. This is an
important book — an indispensable one — that will take readers on
a course of unlearning cerebral lethargy — all the cliches, and ‘they all
look alike’ shallowness popular culture has created and reinforced. It
will take away the cataract we suffer from when it comes to reading
any print on Asia.”
— Alice Wu,
South China Morning Post

In the Middle of China’s Future (2014)

“Plate has also gone beyond political elites to amplify the voices of
ordinary Asians, to show how they are coming to terms with the
dislocation and change that affect Americans as well in a globalized
world. Plate appeals on page after page to Beijing to treat its political
opponents with respect, not because the West demands this but
because the Chinese deserve it. These are not novel arguments, but the
strength of the book lies in the way the case is made consistently over
20 years, during which China’s relations with the West witnessed several
downturns. These included the confrontation of the mid-1990s, when
the U.S. Seventh Fleet intervened to keep the peace in the face of a
Chinese military threat to Taiwan. Never, even during the height of
such crises, did Plate waver in his commitment to the need for trust
between two of the world’s greatest powers. In making a principled
case for peace in the Pacific, Plate acts as a true friend of Asia. He is
credible because he writes with the moral energy of a learned journalist
intent on presenting a complex truth.”
— Asad Latif, Institute for Southeast Asian Studies Research Fellow,
writing in The Straits Times (Singapore)
xii The Fine Art of the Politic a l Interv iew

“Tom Plate is one of the few Western journalists to get the [China]
story right.”
— Kishore Mahbubani, dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School
of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore

“This book is terrific. It calls for a journalism that respects the person
interviewed and that goes beyond the Woodward-Bernstein process of
revelation to a journalism of understanding apply at least as well to the
domestic reporting we see in our papers and on-line. The insistence on
listening as the major element of both journalism and foreign policy
is something that is a cardinal truth. All this fine work is done in Tom
Plate’s inimitable conversational style that draws the reader in.”
— Barry Sanders, international lawyer
and UCLA professor
 Author’s Notes

1. Throughout this book I will refer — lovingly, and without

any embarrassment whatsoever — to passages from Personal
Impressions, the stellar collection of essays of Isaiah Berlin. Why?
The late, great Oxford don peered deeply into the minds of the
great men of his time, searching not for some hidden darkness
but for the enlightenment offered. Berlin was the last man on
the face of the earth to be fooled, but he was always looking
for the way forward, not trapped by the wrongs of the past and
reiterating them as if trapped in some intellectual prison. This
is what I am trying to do in my interviews. This is why Personal
Impressions has long served as a guidepost for me: It offers hope.
As Berlin’s admirer, the late Noel Annan (provost of King’s
College, Cambridge 1956–66, member of the House of Lords)
wrote in the introduction to the 1980 edition: “Unlike some
who have such a sharp eye he is not interested — none less so
— in doing others down. He may not be totally un-censorious
but, unlike many moralists, censoriousness is not a state of mind
in which he finds pleasure. In the act of observing a crook or a
charlatan, a dullard or a devious fellow, he enjoys discovering
redeeming features. Redemption not condemnation, merits not
failings, stimulate him to write; and when he writes he chooses
those he wants to praise and particularizes only their good
qualities.” Amen to that.
xiv The Fine Art of the Politic a l Interv iew

2. The memoirist who can replicate from memory exact quotes

decades later is always an absolute astonishment to me. I am not
comfortable tendering documentary status to such instant recall.
If I have the conversation written down in my files or otherwise
recorded, then you will see it quoted directly, as in “We finish
tonight” (Lee Kuan Yew chapter). Otherwise, if I am dead solid
certain of the meaning but in all honesty unable to retrieve
documentary digital exactitude out of my cranial memory bank
or filed notes, you will see the quote in all italics.
 1
In Pr aise of Conversations
Between Consenting Adults
 Social scientists have depersonalized acres of human
experience so that history resembles a ranch on which herds
move, driven they know not why by impersonal forces,
munching their way across the prairie.

— Noel Annan in the introduction to the

1980 edition of Isaiah Berlin’s Personal Impressions

“Wise Men Speak Because

T h e y H av e S o m e t h i n g T o S a y. ”

Thank you for joining this journalistic expedition and excavation.

My goal is to lay out for your inspection informal notions and
insights into the nature of journalism and in particular the nature of
the political leader — all in the spirit and context of the art form of
the interview.
Our literary archeology aims to lift up into the sunlight for your
examination issues and strategies regarding both the formal, carefully
planned interview session as well as those on-the-run interviews that
make generally miserable the life of the practicing journalist.
Serious journalism is a tough business and with political VIPs,
you often have to take what you can get; often you cannot get what
you really want; and all too infrequently does fate permit you a very
considerable stretch of quarantined time in a very quiet setting, with
the digital recorders activated, smart phones turned off and the former
prime minister or president or UN Secretary General focused entirely
 In Praise of Conversations Between Consenting Adults 3

on the task at hand, sipping calming tea or alert-making coffee, in a

thoughtful, focused mood, entranced and engaged in a conversational
back and forth on the issues of the day and remembrances of things past.
This would be Interview Heaven, as you might imagine, and it
is the rarest of setups. In my long career run, only a handful of VIP
encounters played out this way, and four of them became the basis of
the quartet of books bannered as ‘Giants of Asia’.
The first, in 2009, was Conversations with Lee Kuan Yew; the most
recent was Conversations with Ban Ki-moon — and in between we had
two path-finding former prime ministers, Mahathir Mohamad and
Thaksin Shinawatra.
For this career journalist and professor, these were very special
events — so much so that I thought of them less as interviews than as
extended conversations between consenting adults than as bantering
interviews between alpha adolescents.
Ordinarily, journalists have to make do with far too little time
and are forced to scavenge up what they can at the VIP scene before
being shooed away for the grave annoyance that they seem. No matter:
That is what we do, and to some extent what we are (yes, we can
be an absolute total annoyance!); but we are used to this, live with
it, work with it. Sometimes we get the full story, sometimes but a
snippet or two. Ours is the profession of immediacy, approximation,
imperfection. Expect substantially more of us and often you will be
disappointed.
On the other hand … you won’t be frustrated because of having
to wait forever for judgment or perspective; we are not historians, we
are, as it were, immediatists.
The historian may still derive pleasure and profit from debating
the origins of the Second World War. But that strikes us mere (but
4 The Fine Art of the Politic a l Interv iew

uber-practical) immediatists as rather like the very definition of old

news — beating a dead horse that’s been lying on the side of the road
for quite long enough, actually. In all decency, can’t someone please
cart away the endless ‘origins of the Second World War’ controversy?
I mean, isn’t it past time?!
But while historians are doing their thing, poking and prowling
amidst the remains of the last war or peace, we are searching for the
inklings or origins of the next war — or peace. You choose which one
is the more important or relevant to you.
The VIP interview is our admissions card into the history of the
present and a prime instrument for staking our claim to contemporary
relevance. Consider: It is in the here and the now that you find out
what they have to say. DID THEY REALLY SAY THAT? These
journalistic forays, however imperfect they are or have to be, can help
us understand our present times better and can serve to gift future
historians with a solidly documented sense of our times in the actual
real moment of our lives as we live them.

True conversations might be thought of as mutual interviews instead

of verbal warfare. Properly conducted, they bring out some of our
best traits as human beings, especially our desire to communicate
thoughtfulness and caring. So when you agree to enter into an
adult conversation with another person, you presumably intend to
contribute your good half and are committed to listen more than
merely politely to the other half. This transaction assumes, of course,
that both sides have something worth conversing about and well
listening to.
Or, as our beloved Plato put it: “Wise men speak because they
have something to say; fools because they have to say something.”
 In Praise of Conversations Between Consenting Adults 5

Engaging in a conversation with another human being can

be a defining aspect of a civilized society. Not truly listening to the
other might be categorized as an aspect of the insult. In a sense it is a
barbarism. And we know it when we see it, don’t we?
Misunderstandings are inevitable if we don’t care enough to
listen. Of course, many conversations are trivial and transactional and,
basically, no more than utilitarian. We ask for a favor, banter with a
waiter, flirt mindlessly with someone knowing full well that the flow
of the words is going nowhere (and relaxed perhaps precisely for that
reason).
But other kinds of conversations have a deeper purpose and a
more complex structure.
More than 2,000 years ago, Plato skillfully exploited the
convention of the conversation to illuminate profound points of
philosophy. Novelists have worked with it to illuminate the story
or even propel the whole story along. For the playwright of course,
conversation is more or less the entire pure art. (In another life, my
wish? To be Ibsen…)
In the major political interviews of my career, I have in fact tried
to view them more as somewhat intimate conversations between
two persons rather than as jabbing or jarring exchanges between two
combatants, each with preconceived ideas and attitudes and thus in the
course of the conversation creating not enlightenment but increasing
mutual rigidity and stupidity.
Many Western-style journalistic interviews take the second form.
In effect the ‘interview’ becomes an ‘exchange of views’ — more as an
exchange of verbal gunfire that leads mainly to a battening down of
positions, or at best static re-statements of previously held and indeed
rather well known ones.
6 The Fine Art of the Politic a l Interv iew

Some interviewers view their interview-objects as no more than

easy close-range stationary targets — potential kill on the road to glory.
This is the post-Watergate model in which journalistic creation needs
to be destructive in order to have merit. My view is different: Unless
the interview subject is an historic evil in the manner of a Hitler or a
Stalin or Pol Pot, an exclusionary, dismissive attitude and superiority
complex limits your options, diminishes the range and imagination
of questions, degrades the play of your mind, and lowers your stature.
Human beings, even rehabilitating criminals, merit a measure of
respect. Only those who are without sin among us should consider
casting stones. And I, for one, know of no one like that, especially as I,
generally speaking, do know myself.
Running a nation’s foreign policy or reforming a health system
or restructuring a national economy is not the same level of activity as
lecturing to undergraduates or laying out the front page of a newspaper
or choosing the cover shot for a magazine. Political leaders have hard
jobs that often require hard choices, sometimes risking the potential
political explosion, and perhaps, on occasion, committing a bit of
outright razzmatazz deception. They might well be entitled to believe
that their jobs are at least as difficult as we journalists believe ours to be.
Political power and influence — its use, abuse, nature and style
of use — has fascinated me ever since at a single-digit age I wrestled
over whom my little home printing press would endorse for the U.S.
presidency. Many on my block in Levittown, Long Island, seemed to
lean toward the very articulate Democrat Adlai Stevenson, who talked
the best talk. But after much anguish my LEVITTOWN BUGLE
boldly (if conservatively) settled for World War II hero General
Dwight Eisenhower, on the ground that the American hero of World
War II walked the best walk. He would not have won, of course,
 In Praise of Conversations Between Consenting Adults 7

without the backing of the LEVITTOWN BUGLE. I was sure of

that, back then. This all happened when I was the grand old and self-
confident age of nine.
Ever since that influential triumph, I have done my very best to
try to keep my political-prognostic ego in check. I do hope you will
appreciate this prodigious and saintly effort at self-restraint.

It is not possible to overstate the impact of college life if your college

was a very big deal to you emotionally as well as intellectually and your
prior family life less than a Broadway hit. Amherst was my college and
in fact this was my total reality at that age. At bucolic and intellectually
rigorous Amherst I helped edit the student newspaper and was chosen
by the Political Science Department to serve as student host whenever
a political VIP guest visited campus.
The ‘official greeter’ role must be in my blood: As a summer
intern at the U.S. State Department, just after graduation from
Amherst, before graduate school, I was asked to head up the Student
Lecture Series. I loved it. Guest speakers included then Vice President
Hubert Humphrey, National Security Council chief McGeorge Bundy
and then Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, the brother of the
assassinated president.
The invitation to RFK to address the 100 or so summer interns
was my idea, and it was not popular with the pro-war Dean Rusk State
Department where I was interning. An effort was made to deflect my
invitation, but — like most college students who think they know
everything! — I held my ground on high principle.
Like many college students then, I was against the Vietnam War,
in fact was the sole (anonymous) author of the Amherst College
student newspaper’s official 1965 editorial opposing it — appearing
8 The Fine Art of the Politic a l Interv iew

well before the U.S. media so grindingly slowly began turning against;
and so I had high regard for RFK, who had resigned as holdover
Attorney General under President Lyndon Johnson to run for and win
the junior U.S. Senator seat from New York. In the process Bobby
Kennedy emerged as an increasingly high-profile anti-war figure.
Fortunately, no one at the State Department had the appetite to
veto the invitation I had plotted, and when RFK showed up, I was,
at the wizened age of 22, pretty much bowled over by the young
politician’s vigor and directness.
I had anticipated this, and had prepared a sophomorically sarcastic
introduction for his speech, as if to shelter my obvious hero worship.
Bobby Kennedy was quick to pick up on the irony of being brashly
needled by the very punk kid whom he knew had pushed the State
Deparment bureaucracy to invite him, and, as he took the podium
of the Department’s auditorium, said to the interns, drolly but with a
wickedly admiring smile, and right off, something like: I will tell you
one thing. I am just very glad I don’t have to run for office against your
leader.
It is interesting that decades later I still feel the influence (as in
inspiration) of this passing meeting with Robert Kennedy; Keizo
Obuchi, the late prime minister of Japan, told people of a similar story
when he was a college student. And Ban Ki-moon, now UN Secretary
General, of course, met President John Kennedy at a young age and also
felt something special that helped motivate him to enter pubic service.

I never desired political office, though decades later in Los Angeles

it once became a possibility; but nothing happened. I never returned
to government after that summer stint in Washington, even though
I loved writing speeches for State Department officials, who were
 In Praise of Conversations Between Consenting Adults 9

thrilled to have a reasonably competent student fill-in given that their

otherwise reliable staff speechwriters were all off on summer vacation.
Speechwriting seemed worth doing, in fact — but only if you had
someone worth doing it for. This was a big IF. Consider the case of a
former professor of mine named Theodore Sorensen, JFK’s legendary
speechwriter (“Ask not what your country can do for you…” “Never
negotiate out of fear…”). One night, after his weekly Wednesday night
“Presidential Leadership and Foreign Policy” seminar at Princeton,
where I was a graduate student, Professor Sorensen stopped me in the
hallway to say: You are a talented but still undisciplined writer; you could
be a very good speechwriter some day. You should seriously consider it.
That was a compliment, no? And decades later, at a Manhattan
reception to celebrate my new book Conversations with Lee Kuan Yew,
Ted, then half-blind and moving very unsteadily, asked me: How come
you never did any speechwriting? I had a ready answer, but it was a blunt
one: Because, unlike you, I never liked a politician enough to fall in love
with one. But you did. He thought for a few seconds, then nodded back
in understanding and, I believed, agreement.
Even so, I respect and in many cases admire certain political
leaders, not to mention their speechwriters. They are not all crooks,
some are brilliant and sometimes brave, and even some half-crooks
have managed to have great effectiveness. So try not to judge others
too much or too quickly — but rather listen to them carefully. Politics
is a tough business, and not everyone around the world can do politics
the American way, or (when we see how Congress conducts itself these
days) should want to.
In my political interviews the aim is always to try to lay out a
conversation with a political VIP in a way that requires readers to pay
close attention so as to make many of the judgments for themselves.
10 The Fine Art of the Politic a l Interv iew

Not that I am prepared to relegate myself to little more than a potted

plant sitting quietly across the table; but utopian moral umbrage can
get in the way of understanding.
Without political leaders of special standing, there could be no
politics worth following. Among the heroes/role models of my life are
Iain Macleod, Robert Kennedy and Ted Sorensen. Others I do respect
include John Major (less so Tony Blair), Wang Daohan and Junichiro
Koizumi, plus all four leaders that are the focus of the ‘Giants of Asia’
series. In America today, the pickings seem disturbingly slim, but I do
think history will eventually award good grades to Barack Obama, but
not to George W. Bush — though, yes, very good ones to his father
George H. Sr., an able president indeed. Clinton will get a pass on the
Monica ‘monkey business’ — never expect too much from guys.
I respect many political leaders. They have a very hard job,
sometimes an impossible one. The movies they star in are the epics of
actual modern political life — and theirs is not the easiest of parts to
play. Happy endings have to be hard earned, not just cleverly scripted.
This empathy is a basis of this book. I should be honest about
this: I do not despise political leaders, as do many Western journalists.
Many I respect and some I greatly admire. I do apologize for what may
seem like an immense lapse in judgment or rather, perhaps, an effort
to deal with and understand reality.
Blame it all, if you will, on Robert Kennedy. But I never did get
the long interview with him. This is a sadness. I honestly think my
approach would have appealed to him. It could have been my greatest
interview. But when I might have done it, I would have been too
young to do it right. The fine art of interviewing, like fine wine, takes
time for maturation.
 2
On the Nature of
the Political Interview
 The journalist probes for the weak spot, inserts the
banderilla, and so goads the wretched bull that he plunges
to the doom of self-exposure. Professional interviewers
regard this special skill with grave self-satisfaction.

— Noel Annan in the introduction to Personal Impressions

“ W h e n T h e P r e s i d e n t D o e s I t,
T h at M e a n s I t I s N o t I l l e g a l . ”

The idea — the ideal notion — of the perfect interview surely exists
only in the mind and soul of the ambitious journalist and is more a
reflection of the journalist’s vanity than attainable reality.
Nor does the perfect interviewer exist, though if I am wrong, and
one or more such journalists do exist somewhere in real time and space
— on this planet and not Mars — that master is not I. Alas. It is really
not (as my critics well understand!).
Based on my experience, if the goal in interviewing the political
VIP is perfection, then this is no task for the mere mortal. I do try
— every time I try and I try hard; and, for some reason, interviewing
political figures does come relatively easily to me. But it is always,
basically, difficult. Does that make any sense? Maybe not or maybe by
the end of this book it will.
Another way to say this, perhaps, is that the best political interviews
are a matter more of the magic of the art than the rigors of the science.
 On the Nature of the Political Interview 13

There are rules and tips and we will see what they are but in the final
analysis you need the touch of the poet more than the shove of the
plumber to get close enough to elicit truth from power.
The political VIP interview offers peculiar problems as well
as major opportunities. They are but a snapshot of the historical
moment, and they are difficult because
the atmosphere around them is political, INTERVIEW TIP
and politics is to transparency as freeway There are rules and
traffic is to clean air.
tips and we will see
Perfect or near-perfect interviews
what they are, but in
only take place in more virtuous realms.
Consider the case of the professionals the final analysis you
of the hereafter. In confidentiality, the need the touch of the
priest in hearing the enumerated sins of poet more than the
his repentant sinner can achieve a kind shove of the plumber
of perfection with a careful but respectful
to get close enough to
choreography of confession. The process
can prove — in a manner of speaking —
elicit truth from power.
heavenly.
Another possibility is the case of the shrink. In very strict
confidentiality, as in that of the church confessional or the office
couch, the cultivated psychiatrist in close psychological proximity with
her trusting patient can achieve near-clinical perfection with clever
protocols distilled from her own work and that of past shrink greats.
The political VIP interview exists in an entirely different world
and has an entirely different purpose.
For starters, it is designed to be shared with everyone and their
grandmother. If kept off the record or classified forever, it is of little
use to anyone, except perhaps to the interviewer. The whole point of
14 The Fine Art of the Politic a l Interv iew

the political VIP interview is to birth all of it into the public realm for
discussion and dissection and potential absorption. The last thing one
would want to do with any secrets or special new insights revealed in
the interview is to keep them secret.
Not all political cultures find it equally valuable to publicize
secrets but in a culture that depends on public education and
discussion of political issues and personalities, the political interview
can be invaluable. The responsibility of the interviewer to perform at a
high level is substantial. The journalist has a socially important job to
do; journalism can be vital to the public welfare. Interviewing people
in political power is a serious business and the resulting interview or
series of conversations can have palpable consequences.
Methodologies are important but the core of the job is moral. The
political interviewer may assume at one time or the other the tactical
pose of the shrink or of the confessor but those are simply transitory
techniques, not true roles. They are essentially private transactions.
In effect the political interviewer is the representative of the citizen —
reader or viewer or listener — who cannot possibly co-habit, of course,
the same space and exist in the same time as the interview session. So
there is a civic responsibility of representation. This role is no joke,
and the interviewer needs to take this aspect of journalism seriously …
though without losing her or his sense of humor — ever. If there is one
useful tool not often taught, it is that a sense of humor can do more
for the interviewer than the most thought-through interview strategy.
Instead of a lot of notes, bring to the session some jokes.
It is also possible to take the view that the interviewer in effect
represents the interests of historians decades or even centuries hence
who will be reaching back into their past and thus into our present to
reconstruct and interpret, with proper tenor and accurate substance,
 On the Nature of the Political Interview 15

the political issues and political personalities of our age. And so the
extended interview or conversations, competently recorded digitally
or in print, offer an incomparable fact-base and reality-check for the
future observer of our present.
Looked at in this way, am I suggesting that the political interview
is one of the more significant contributions of the journalist? I am —
yes, right, I am. Imagine that somehow the interview-arrow were to
disappear from the journalist’s quiver — what would be left? Mainly
… the deadline story that, within 24 hours, would be either dated
or probably incomplete or possibly even at least partially wrong; the
opinion essay or column whose opinion may or may not be rigorously
tethered to reality; the gaudy gossip page whose noteworthy celebs
of the moment may or may not, in the
vast stretch of time and judgment of the INTERVIEW TIP
gods, prove marginally worthy or even If there is one useful
enduringly notable.
tool not often taught,
Without the fine art of the political
interview, journalism would be reduced it is that a sense of
to even less than the sums of its very humor can do more
minor arts. for the interviewer
The journalistic interview is vital than the most thought-
in almost any political culture short
through interview
of the truly closed-down totalitarian
nightmare, but of course it can take
strategy. Instead of a
on different functions. In a successful lot of notes, bring to
political society where the news media the session some jokes.
is positioned as a partner of government
rather than protean protagonist, the successful interview still remains
vital. It can draw out the VIP subject in ways that are beyond the talent
16 The Fine Art of the Politic a l Interv iew

or instinct of the government or the VIP. It can help the government

official explain a new policy approach with a vibrancy and clarity that
otherwise might be lacking. In an adversarial political culture, such
as the U.S., the successful interview may be pugilistic or what I call
psychiatric, but either approach is acceptable, as long as it produces
special results unobtainable any other way.
What is dubious is an approach that mainly serves to spotlight
the interviewer and overshadow the interviewee. This abuse of
interview-power can take several forms but the obvious one is the well-
known smash-mouth approach, common in the West: hard-charging
prosecutor with insinuations, accusations coming at you, hormones
blazing. The aim is the thrill of the kill — banderilla!
As long as the interviewer draws blood — so goeth the conceit
of this technique — the truth has been drilled into. Without piercing
questions, the truth will remain sealed. And that’s the only way for the
shark to see the blood in the water and move in for the kill.
But, more often than not, this can turn out to be American
journalism at its feral worst.
I put forward this thesis to a conference room full of journalists in
Beijing. They were staffers at China Daily, the nation’s leading English
language daily newspaper that is making international impact with
various global editions. Its editors had invited me to present a seminar
on ‘the art of the interview’. This I was happy to do — and in fact this
riveting experience became the inspiration for this book.
Many staffers attended the session in August 2014, encouraged by
their bosses to take two hours off from their routine to exchange views
on the craft of journalism with this visiting American. The newspaper’s
invitation had been passed on to me through the All China Journalists
Association, which had organized and sponsored the weeklong lecture
 On the Nature of the Political Interview 17

trip to Shanghai, Xi’an and Beijing. China Daily was my last stop on
this exhilarating but tiring tour.
In some ways it was the most gratifying tour stop as well, and
mixing it up with these journalists perked me up and tamed my jetlag.
There is in my blood a love for newspapers in their classical, paper-
form that is deep and abiding. There remains something special about
them, even in this age when more and more they seem the plodding
prehistoric dinosaur losing serious ground every day to the modern
quicksilver puma.
In the case of China, whose media the government and the party
hovers over carefully, newspapers still provide value. Even if their
reporting options are limited in significant respects, in many other
ways they are as free to serve their readers as any Western newspaper.
And as the China media overall continues its gradual detoxification
from dependency on state financing and goes cold turkey into the cruel
competitive swirling waters of the market, the pressure on the editors
to produce good, attractive and compelling journalism mounts.
One way to achieve this quality is to hire good journalists, train
them and keep them happily employed.
The editors of China Daily take this view and act on it. I admire
them for this and when an opportunity arose to make a very small
contribution, I accepted readily.
The afternoon seminar on ‘the art of the interview’ started it all
off. And then in April of 2015 I offered a talk on ‘deadline writing’
via an Internet web-conference studio from my university office in
Los Angeles directly to the newspaper’s conference room.
LMU, my university, had kicked up my office with a state-of-the-
art skype-type studio that was resplendent in stereo sound, luxurious
with wide-screen viewing and adroit with a mobile camera that could
18 The Fine Art of the Politic a l Interv iew

be moved around the office in search of the main action. For the skype-
style session, ‘younger’ journalists attended, in an effort organized
by the paper’s Human Resources department and pushed by its top
editors.
Like journalists everywhere, the staffers in Beijing showed me
an appetite and aptitude for explaining to their reading, listening or
watching audience what is going on in the world around them. To
do this takes technique as well as talent. They all have talent — no
different from American journalists. But they operate with a different
matrix of restrictions and set of out-of-bound markers than their
American counterparts.
So be it — no journalist, anywhere, is completely free. Some of
us are bound by cultural bias and stereotypes, others by commercial
restraints, others by government oversight. There is no free lunch
or free newspaper. Instead of looking down on China’s journalists,
American journalists should reflect on how well they do what they are
allowed to do in the environment of their times and political culture
they have, and reflect more on what we can do at our end for our
own audience and at the same time do whatever we can to help our
colleagues on the other side of the Pacific to do a better job for theirs.

The first session, in summer 2014 for the talk on the ‘art of the
interview’, was conducted inside the main conference room of China
Daily (a 20-minute video cut is available on my university website:
asiamedia.lmu.edu). I offered a short PowerPoint presentation with
the assistance of Ms Xu Weiwei, a top journalist on the staff and the
gifted Chinese translator of my book In the Middle of China’s Future.
The atmosphere of the session was professional but not overly formal.
I believe the journalists in attendance understood that I was honored
 On the Nature of the Political Interview 19

as the guest of china daily in beijing, august 2014: Where the idea
for this book on the political interview originated.

to have been invited to be with them and would try to do a good job
and not bore them to death in the attempt.
I could see that the Chinese journalists were more than familiar
with the notion that excessive pushiness in the interview process was
inappropriate. Their problem of course was precisely the opposite: that
any pushiness by the interviewer of any kind was not widely or deeply
appreciated in their political culture. In the Chinese media system, the
press serves to advance the goals and perspectives of the party and the
government, not to challenge them. A proper social comportment is
required.
With this said, true journalists are journalists in every part of
the world I have visited. Their heart desires to tell the true story to
the extent they comprehend it, and to the extent the political (or
commercial) environment permits it. We American journalists have
much in common. We may think we are better but it is better if we
20 The Fine Art of the Politic a l Interv iew

think otherwise. The downside of over-estimating who we are and

what we do is a professional self-delusion.
The Chinese journalists related readily to my declension of
interview types as defined by time-availability. The most common and
the least satisfying being the Deadline Interview; the medium-range
opportunity being the Newspaper Feature or Magazine Interview,
whether published online or on paper; and the potentially most
satisfying being the Continued Conversation that permits issue redress
and significant depth.
In this category we submit for your consideration, of course, the
‘Giants of Asia’ book quartet — but more about them later. One of
the truly famous examples of the Continued Conversation were the
brilliant interviews in May 1977 by English journalist David Frost
with disgraced former President Richard Nixon. And here’s the point:
David took near-forever to come to the point:

Frost: “Would you say that there are certain situations

… where the president can decide that it’s in the
best interests of the nation, and do something
illegal?”

Nixon: “Well, when the president does it, that means it is

not illegal.”

But that point was well worth waiting for, don’t you think?
The Deadline Interview is the one that drives all us journalists
crazy. It is journalism on the run, the most superficial and the most
demeaning, and the least likely to produce utter and total journalistic
accuracy, as it is probably the initial run at the story. But the Deadline
 On the Nature of the Political Interview 21

Pointing to the historic Mao-Nixon meeting: In praise of

the careful, ‘soft’ ‘David Frost’ approach to the famous Nixon interviews.

Interview looks to be the eternal curse, with us forever: With the

omnipresence of the Internet and the 24-hour news cycle, deadlines
are in effect constantly upon us, and so the problem is not getting
better, and in fact is getting drearily worse.
But is there a silver journalistic lining within the Internet cloud?
My hope is that the explosion of bad interviews and half-baked stories
intensifies the need for the more serious journalistic effort. It means
that as the Internet-only journalist becomes more than the counter
clerk of the cup of bad instant coffee, time becomes less of the essence.
The slow-brewed will become but a fond memory.
Immediacy will always have its attractions — and sometimes a
quick cup of bad coffee is all we require. But over all, context and
explanation will be needed as more and more we are flooded, in effect,
with data without dimension or perspective.
22 The Fine Art of the Politic a l Interv iew

The instantaneous electronic media is crushing some good

journalism but paradoxically is recreating the need for it. This means
the role of the interviewer and the impact of the near-perfect interview
will prove greater than ever. Quality journalism now becomes even
more vital amid the mind-numbing Internetworld’s asteroidal junk
bombardment.
And I think my Chinese colleagues at China Daily enjoyed my
optimistic message.
Then again, they may have discounted some of my Los Angeles
sunshine due to the odd national characteristic of the American to
remain optimistic, no matter what the perceived reality.
I wish to thank my colleagues in Beijing for listening to me, if
mainly out of politeness. I hope you have been, too. I may be wrong
about my thesis that quality journalism is more important than ever;
but I am not in doubt about it.
And I greatly prefer to stay in denial about the alternative thesis.
 3
On Surviving
the Celebrity Interview
 [On the other hand] … would it not be equally
ludicrous to condemn those who liked noise … who
preferred vehemence to reticence, pleasure to austerity,
exuberance to melancholy, intellectual gaiety and the
deflating of the establishment, the self-important
and the pompous, to pietas and gravitas?

— Noel Annan in the introduction to Personal Impressions

“ D o n ’ t J u s t S ta n d T h e r e
Looking Skinny!”

In many respects the political interview is quite different from the

entertainment or celebrity interview. The latter aims to promote a new
movie or casting or collaboration or whatever; these media events take
place every day in Los Angeles where I live.
By contrast the political interview ranges over foreign policy,
governing philosophy, even an entire political career. Like the
Hollywood interview — yes, it can be deeply self-serving. But the
issues in political conversations will range over a broader and (I would
argue) deeper territory. To me, the political interview is in a league all
its own.
My perspicacious wife Andrea once pointed out something
similar. The occasion was a private dinner for four hosted by Ban
Ki-moon and his wife Soon-taek at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los
Angeles. They were in town to headline a Hollywood humanitarian
event at which the United Nations Secretary General was, in fact, the
 On Surviving the Celebrity Interview 25

star — along with former President Bill Clinton and screen celebs such
as Orlando Bloom, Diane Lane, Demi Moore, Kiefer Sutherland and
Hilary Swank, as well as movie directors Ron Howard, Jason Reitman
and Ed Zwick.
Ban, who probably has met and conferred with every major
political leader of our time, at times can be as shy as a librarian and
accepts that he is not the second coming of Nelson Mandela. He was
worried about holding his own against such celebrity star power at the
private party planned after the main event — a day of panels and talks
on Hollywood and the United Nations.
Andrea, a former actress, got a little cross with Ban, whom
she likes a great deal but feels needed much better public-relations
management, and advised him in strong terms that he was the “real
deal” and the powder-puff celebs were anything but. With Soon-
taek all but cheering her on, Andrea rather firmly pointed out the
difference between the Hollywood world and his world. She noted
that when a Hollywood ‘shoot’ was over, the ‘casualties’ got up, dusted
themselves off, went to the makeup room to clean up, and went home
to resume their lives. But when Ban and the UN witness bodies at the
side of the road — casualties of war or ethnic cleansing or starvation
or a terrifying tsunami — those bodies do not ‘rise from the dead’.
Your life is real, she said to Ban; their life is just a world of dreams that
makes money. You will deservedly be the superstar tomorrow, she said
in effect. Mrs Ban smiled warmly and appreciatively.
Andrea, the Hollywood child, hit that non-macho male on the
head with the hammer of reality. I agree with her and admire Ban and
other political leaders who are dealing with harsh and pressing reality
in real time. As for politically-active or cause-championing celebs, I
have nothing against any of them, and greatly admire some of them,
26 The Fine Art of the Politic a l Interv iew

even when I may not agree with what they are doing; for example, the
accomplished actor Richard Gere’s commitment to the Dalai Lama
cannot be questioned in its sincerity, though his overall analysis of
Tibet might be different from my own. And so I haven’t done many
celebrity interviews, and whatever the actual number, I wish to do no
more. But one I’ll never forget took place in London — and I must tell
you about it, because it conveys an important point about the protocol
of the interview.
This happened some years ago when I was much younger and,
looking back on it now, I didn’t know what in the world I was doing
at the Connaught Hotel, or why in the world I had taken the daffy,
unexpected assignment to interview a visiting Hollywood movie star.
Even today I’m not sure why I was even asked. Everyone at the Daily
Mail in London knew me as something of a snob from Los Angeles.
I — me! — do prime ministers, not whacked out Hollyweirds.
Yet my assigned target on this chilly cold day in 1981 was Shelley
Winters, starring in Blake Edwards’ new comedy S.O.B. — an actress
well known to the movie world as the thoroughly repulsive (and thus
brilliant) wife in the disturbing Lolita film starring the incomparable
English actor James Mason.
And in fact Shelley Winters was having a hard enough time
explaining the plot basics of the movie to me, much less any aspect of
foreign policy. But — perhaps to her credit — the obviously intelligent
actress wasn’t trying that hard. She knew that what she was doing
was stupid (though, actually, the movie, a satire on stupid formulaic
Hollywood, was not). Draped horizontally and almost defiantly across
the generous expanse of an overstuffed Edwardian sofa, as if a semi-
sleepy petulant Persian cat drowsy from excessive sleep, and swathed
in robes as if all set and ready for a Rubens modeling gig, the two-time
 On Surviving the Celebrity Interview 27

Oscar winner (The Diary of Anne Frank, A Patch of Blue) was clearly
absorbed less by my questions than by the irritating competition my
wife was presenting right before her eyes in the competitive weight
department.
The ‘annoying’ Andrea was a weight-watcher as severely religious
as the Taliban, and Winters was clearly heavily agnostic; and petite
at five feet one inch tall as the whale-ish Winters was anything but,
Andrea repeatedly if politely kept refusing the offer to dive along with
her open-mouth first into the large box of hotel chocolates that was
occupying so much of Winters’ attention. But even without Andrea’s
help, the chocolates, somehow, one after another, as relentless as
raindrops dropping on Shelley’s head, kept vanishing as the ‘S.O.B.’
star kept gorging. Finally exasperated with herself, the actress nearly
shouted at my wife: “Don’t just stand there looking skinny!”
And so it was utterly impossible to dislike Shelley Winters, but in
my view the article I wrote for the Daily Mail, a politically conservative
tabloid newspaper that was then under the legendary editorship of
my great European mentor Sir David English, would have been a
sun-baked banana leaf of trivia had I not decided to go with her wild
assertions of ‘communist infiltration in Hollywood’.
Here we had a moral dilemma: In the interview, Winters was
adamant that the West Coast mass-entertainment industry was creepy-
crawly with Commies. This was not something I would say of course
(much less even try to verify); but it was something she would say —
and did, without offering verification. Was her motive to make sure
the interview got into the conservative Daily Mail and she felt her best
chance of this was to go outrageous? Did this intelligent professional
woman sense I was a hopelessly serious person and would only respond
to a comment of gravity, however absurd? And was I — the interviewer
28 The Fine Art of the Politic a l Interv iew

— right to dutifully relay this insanity to readers simply on the ground

that the interviewee had stated it exactly as I wrote it? Interestingly,
decades later, in a conversation with former Malaysian Prime Minister
Mahathir Mohamad, a similar question was to arise (see page 166).
This had to do with his insane charge that the attack on September 11,
2001, was not the work of Islamic terrorists.
I absolutely hated the Hollywood piece — I just did not know
what the heck to do with Shelley Winters! — and so did David English,
who, after returning from vacation, all but strung up the newspaper’s
Features editor for asking me to do it in the first place. “Why, it was
undignified of our American visitor!” he thundered.
Such was, and is, the bias of a great many journalists: That celebrity
interviews are the bon-bons of the business but that interviewing the
prime minister is the serious meat of true history. And it’s such an
important piece of business that the ‘vegetarian’ journalist should stick
to, well, Shelley Winters.
As you can guess by now, I was more than okay with that
distinction. And this book is based on that bias, too.

Still, even in interviewing a celebrity — even a celebrity gangster —

the wise interviewer needs a sense of humility, not a pugilistic sense
of superiority. The very structure of the interview session suggests a
measure of equality between the two parties, so at our hubristic worst,
we are only equal. Trying for the knockout punch will only trigger the
drawbridges of your subject to be drawn up high.
Many years ago I interviewed a well-known, happily self-advertised
gangster. I then lived in Manhattan, where I was a young writer and
editor for New York Magazine. The subject lived in Los Angeles, recently
released from a considerable prison stretch. He was Mickey Cohen, a
 On Surviving the Celebrity Interview 29

known associate of Meyer Lansky of Miami who was widely viewed as a

national leader of a major organized crime syndicate. In the interview, in
his L.A. home, the interviewing approach took him by surprise because
he did not expect that I would have brought to the task any manner
of respect. But I did: For if you do not, you should not expect to get
very far. The result of the two-hour interview that graced my book
Crime Pays! (pages 170–78) was a rare in-depth interview from Cohen
in his waning years. His best revelation might have been of a large,
political fundraising banquet he organized and paid for. He told the
story with a wry smile. “I threw a banquet
… with Murray Chotiner … remember
INTERVIEW TIP
Murray Chotiner? [a long-time associate Even in interviewing
and aide of Richard Nixon]. Now there a celebrity — even a
wasn’t one legitimate person at this
celebrity gangster —
dinner. And Nixon got up to speak. Now
the wise interviewer
this is a fact of political life.”
What I respected about Cohen was needs a sense of
not what he did professionally but what humility, not a
he knew about his chosen profession. If I pugilistic sense of
knew what he knew, after all, then I would superiority. The
not need to be interviewing him. By
very structure of the
respecting his knowledge, I encouraged
him to share more of it with me.
interview session
One more story about showing suggests a measure of
another non-political interview: So equality between the
Sir David English was looking for an two parties, so at our
interview story with a maverick member hubristic worst, we are
of the Labour Party who wanted to split
only equal.
with his old party. It wasn’t the politics
30 The Fine Art of the Politic a l Interv iew

he was interested in; it was the human passion and self-doubt behind
the political decision to defect from the political party of his father
and of his grandfather and all his relatives and friends and family
canine and so on and so on…. He found a veteran Laborite member of
Parliament named Tom Bradley who agreed to talk to the Daily Mail
… sent me up to Northampton to spend time with him and his wife
and his son … very nice people … Andrea came along, liked them as
well. Interview after interview and I still felt I was missing something
… missing some key to his extraordinary decision to join a new party
called the Social Democrats (not too leftie, not too rightie) … I needed
a strong opening story for the piece, something very emotional … I
could not quite get it from Member of Parliament Tom, or Mrs Tom
… Ah! When an interview hits a dead end, interview someone else!…
I began playing catch-ball with the 11-year-old son … sweet but
withdrawn, never speaking much … He easily caught my curve ball,
which was basically lame, but it did sort of curve — anyway, he could
tell that I had respect for him. One afternoon when the parents were
completely out of earshot we sat down in front of the fireplace, I was
sensing the son wanted to say something about his father … When
did you first realize your father was so upset that he was going to defect
from his long-beloved party? … The son stared at the warmth of the
fireplace, and then back at me … It was when he stopped planting the
gladiolas … The kid stopped me dead… The boy further explained
that every winter, in anticipation of the coming spring, Dad would
go into the greenhouse and plant the gladiola bulbs … Planting, the
annual English rite of spring … For his Dad, this was as regular as
anything in the Bradley family tradition … But not this year! Not this
time! Dad was too upset, too emotionally preoccupied with what he
had to do… And thus was born the interview/profile: THE NIGHT
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 el menos dañino tú eres.
El hombre, a menudo, en brazos
del reposo desfallece,
y es bueno que en el camino
le anime, aguije y despierte
un compañero de viaje,
aunque el mismo diablo fuere.
(A los Arcángeles.)

La que brilla inmortal santa hermosura

gozad, hijos de Dios, en mi regazo;
la sustancia, que vive eterna y pura,
de amor os ligue con el tierno lazo,
y a la incierta apariencia del momento
forma dé vuestro fijo pensamiento.
(El cielo se cierra y los Arcángeles se dispersan.)

Mefistófeles, solo

De vez en cuando olvido mis rencillas,

y busco al Viejo, y pláticas entablo.
Pláceme que un Señor de campanillas
trate con atención a un pobre diablo.
Primera parte
 DE NOCHE
En un aposento gótico, estrecho, con elevada bóveda,
FAUSTO intranquilo sentado a su pupitre.

Fausto

Filosofía, ¡ay, Dios!, Jurisprudencia,

Medicina además, y Teología,
por desgracia también, lo estudié todo,
todo lo escudriñé con ansia viva,
y hoy, ¡pobre loco!, tras afanes tantos,
¿qué es lo que sé? Lo mismo que sabía.
Doctor me llamo, dígome maestro,
y hace diez años ya que abajo, arriba,
acá y allá, y a diestra y a siniestra,
a rastras llevo la escolar traílla.
¡Solo pude aprender que no sé nada,
y el alma en la contienda está rendida!
Bachiller o doctor, seglar o preste,
nadie su ciencia iguala con la mía;
ni escrúpulo ni duda me atormentan;
ni demonio ni infierno me intimidan;
y así, de sombras y de espantos libre,
huyó todo el encanto de mi vida.
Al hombre inútil, para el bien estéril,
nada puedo enseñar que de algo sirva,
y sin caudal, ni crédito, ni honores,
vida arrastro que un can despreciaría.
Doyme a la Magia, pues. ¡Oh, si pudiera
el vigor del Espíritu, que anima
al Verbo humano, la secreta clave
revelarme de todos los enigmas!
No con pálido afán sudara sangre
para hacer comprender lo que mi misma
razón no comprendió; y en las entrañas
penetrando del mundo, encontraría
del eterno Poder vivificante,
allí dentro, las fuentes escondidas,
y no hiciera, en insulsas peroratas,
tráfago insustancial de charla ambigua.
A mi angustioso afán, ¡oh luna llena!,
da por última vez tu luz amiga:
¡cuántas, a media noche, tus destellos
bebí ansioso, postrado en esta silla,
cuando aquí, entre volúmenes y folios,
tristes y misteriosos descendían!
¡Fuérame dado en tu viviente lumbre
feliz vagar sobre las altas cimas;
en los antros seguir los vagarosos
espíritus; flotar con tu indecisa
muriente claridad en las praderas,
y olvidando las ásperas vigilias
del inútil saber, en tu rocío
bañar feliz la sien enardecida!
¿Hasta cuándo será mi calabozo
este tugurio, madriguera indigna,
en donde hasta la pura luz del cielo
la pintada vidriera nubla y filtra?
Cíñeme en torno cúmulo de libros,
que el polvo ensucia y muerde la polilla;
papelotes y viejos pergaminos
suben al techo en apretadas pilas.
Cóncavos vidrios, botes y redomas,
extraños instrumentos hechos trizas
–¡única y triste herencia de mis padres!–,
¡mi vida llenan, si mi vida es vida!
Y pregunto: ¿por qué, medroso y débil,
mi desmayado corazón palpita?
Y pregunto: ¿por qué mortal angustia
mis flacas pulsaciones paraliza?
Lo pregunto, y sin ti, Naturaleza,
en cuyo seno Dios nos forma y cría,
en el polvo, en el humo y la carcoma,
vivo enterrado entre osamentas frías.
¡Fuera de aquí! ¡Luz! ¡Aire! ¡Campo abierto!
Este libro me da segura guía:
por la mano del docto Nostradamus
fueron todas sus páginas escritas.
El curso aprenderé de las estrellas,
y de nueva virtud mi alma provista,
sabré cómo el Espíritu invocado
al invocante Espíritu adoctrina.
Con las áridas reglas, nuestra mente
los signos misteriosos no descifra;
pues que vagáis, Espíritus, en torno,
oíd, y contestad a la voz mía.
(Abre el libro y se presenta el signo del Macrocosmos.)

¡Cuán sabrosa fruición, ante esa imagen,

mi ser inunda y mi sentido anima!
Por mis arterias y mis nervios corre
el santo hervor de renaciente vida.
¿Fue un Dios acaso quien trazó este signo,
que el hondo afán del corazón mitiga,
al Espíritu presta nuevas alas
y a la Naturaleza el velo quita?
¿Un Dios yo mismo soy? Todo a mis ojos
aparece distinto: en esas líneas
vi a la Naturaleza productora,
que al alma está patente y sometida.
El Sabio dijo bien –hoy lo comprendo–: «Barrera
impenetrable no limita
el mundo del Espíritu: ¿está muerto
tu pobre corazón, tu alma rendida?
¡Álzate, pues, y tu terrena frente
baña en el rosicler del nuevo día!»
(Contempla el signo.)

Todo se mueve, completando el todo,

y cada parte enlázase distinta;
los celestes Espíritus, que ascienden
y descienden al par en dobles filas,
pasan de mano en mano el áureo sello;
y en el éter batiendo alas benditas,
van de la tierra al cielo, cielo y tierra
llenando de inefables armonías.
¡Bella visión, pero visión al cabo!
¡Cómo asir y estrechar a la infinita
Naturaleza, y exprimir sus pechos!
Manantial ellos son de toda vida;
de ellos penden los cielos y la tierra;
su fecundo raudal todo lo anima,
 y en vano pide mi sediento labio
una gota, no más, de esa ambrosía.
(Vuelve la hoja involuntariamente y ve el signo del Espíritu de la Tierra.)

¡Cuánto es diversa, Genio de la Tierra,

tu acción! Estás más cerca, y a tu vista
crecen mis bríos, cual si rojo mosto
inundara mi ser: con frente erguida
quiero lanzarme al mundo; afrontar quiero
sus infortunios, afrontar sus dichas;
provocar la tormenta, y sin espanto
ver la nave a mis pies rota y hundida.

Pero nublose el cielo;

la luna en él se eclipsa;
mi lámpara se apaga,
y ráfagas rojizas
descienden y circundan
mi sien descolorida.
Vertiginoso anhelo
dentro de mí palpita,
y siento que el Espíritu
siniestro se aproxima.
¡Rasga el velo! ¡Aparece!
¡Cuál sufre el alma mía!
Por abrir nuevo cauce
mis sentimientos lidian,
y hacia ti, fatal Genio,
todos se precipitan.
¡Preséntate, aunque fuere
al precio de mi vida!
(Toma el libro y pronuncia misteriosamente el nombre del Espíritu.
Enciéndese una luz rojiza y trémula. El Espíritu aparece en ella.)

El Espíritu

¿Quién me llama?
 Fausto

¡Visión espantadora!

El Espíritu

Audaz me evocas y a venir me obligas,

y ahora...

Fausto

Me aterra tu presencia. Aparta...

 El Espíritu

Con largo afán llamábasme, y querías

ver mi semblante y escuchar mi acento;
cedo a tu voz, preséntome a tu vista:
¿qué cobarde congoja rinde y postra
tu valor sobrehumano? ¿Quién tu altiva
aspiración rindió? ¿Por qué desmaya
el corazón soberbio, que en sus vivas
palpitaciones engendraba un mundo,
y con su propia savia lo nutría?
¿Cómo sucumbes, si tender el vuelo
al par de los Espíritus querías?
¡Y eres tú Fausto, el Fausto que me invoca!
¡Eres tú Fausto, y, ¡despreciable hormiga!,
al soplo solo de mi voz, heladas
temblaron tus entrañas conmovidas!

Fausto

¡Oh, no, roja visión, hijo del fuego!

Soy Fausto, soy tu igual; no me intimidas.

El Espíritu

En la incesante ráfaga
de actividad continua,
vuelo de arriba abajo,
vuelo de abajo arriba;
y en ese veloz torno,
que el Tiempo mueve y gira,
mis dedos impalpables
las tenues hebras hilan
de la vida y la muerte,
de la muerte y la vida,
tejiendo a Dios, en el telar eterno,
la que viste inmortal túnica viva.

Fausto

¡Cómo sintiendo voy que a ti me acerco,

Espíritu que flotas y te agitas
sobre el mundo!
 El Espíritu

Al Espíritu que sueñas

y tu mente concibe, te aproximas,
no a mí.

Fausto (aterrado)

¿No a ti? Pues dime: ¿a quién? ¿Imagen

soy de Dios, y ni a ti llegar podría?
(Llaman.)

¡Oh! ¡Mal haya!... Es mi fámulo. Destruye

mi ventura y los éxtasis disipa.
En el pleno esplendor de mis visiones,
¿para qué, impertinente, tu visita?
(Entra Wagner con bata y gorro de dormir. Fausto le vuelve la espalda
malhumorado.)

Wagner

¡Perdón! Tu voz, que a mí llega,

es la que me trajo aquí:
que recitabas creí
alguna tragedia griega.
Y hubiera, a fe, gran placer
en saberlas declamar,
que hoy ese arte, a no dudar,
utilísimo ha de ser;
pues alguien dijo, señor,
recuérdolo en este instante,
que dar puede un comediante
lección a un predicador.

Fausto

Dársela podrá muy bien,

si es el cura, por acaso,
otro comediante, caso
que ocurrir suele también.

Wagner

Quien en su estancia sombría

vive en retiro profundo,
y sale no más al mundo
en algún solemne día;
quien, si llega a percibirlo,
es por angosto agujero,
mal puede, a lo que yo infiero,
conmoverlo y dirigirlo.

Fausto

No ha de lograrlo jamás
quien en su pecho no sienta
arder la llama violenta
con que abrase a los demás.
Pasa aquí todos tus ratos
estudiando: mata el hambre
con esta merienda fiambre
de las sobras de otros platos;
y acumulando a montones
los textos, que has hecho trizas,
sopla sobre sus cenizas
con enérgicos pulmones.
Brotará menguada llama,
y es posible que a ese precio
el niño, el simple y el necio
tu nombre den a la fama;
mas, si fuere tu ambición
los corazones mover,
ha de brotar tu saber
de tu propio corazón.

Wagner

Lo que al vulgo halaga más

es la pomposa elocuencia,
y en esa difícil ciencia
aún me encuentro muy atrás.

Fausto

Busca más dignos laureles

y adelanta poco a poco...
¿quieres hacer como el loco
que agita los cascabeles?
Afeite de todas clases
es a la verdad ajeno;
si has de decir algo bueno,
no vayas cazando frases;
pues son las palabras huecas,
que brillante oropel cubre,
ráfaga estéril de octubre
que mueve las hojas secas.
 Wagner

Incierta y breve es la vida,

largo el arte, y en tan alta
empresa a veces nos falta
la razón desvanecida.
Quien llegar al fin intenta
afán sufre luengo y rudo,
y en el camino, a menudo
el pobre diablo revienta.

Fausto

La sed del alma no calma

un árido pergamino:
ese manantial divino
lo lleva en su fondo el alma.

Wagner

También la imaginación
goza cuando el vuelo tiende,
y el espíritu comprende
de otra edad y otra región.
De antigua ciencia los rastros
descubre, y disfruta viendo
cómo el hombre va subiendo
y subiendo...

Fausto

¡Hasta los astros!

¿Qué es el pasado, en verdad?
Un libro sellado: sombras
y dudas. ¿Qué es lo que nombras
espíritu de otra edad?
La doctrina, nueva o vieja,
de aqueste o aquel autor,
que su propio resplandor
sobre el pasado refleja.
Si bien lo miras, ¡qué enojos!
su luz es sombra no más;
y de ella separarás
desencantado los ojos;
pues su genio, que de lejos
brilla con rayos propicios,
es costal de desperdicios,
almacén de trastos viejos,
y escenario, en conclusión,
donde inconscientes se agitan
y bellas frases recitan
monigotes de cartón.

Wagner

¿Y el universo? ¿Y el hombre?
¿Saber su esencia no cabe?

Fausto

¿Saber? ¡Pensar que se sabe!

¿Quién dar puede el propio nombre
a las cosas? Si en la tierra
alguien descubre esa oculta
ciencia, y en sí no sepulta
los arcanos que ella encierra,
al derramar esa luz,
que al hombre obcecado hiere,
víctima infelice, muere
en la hoguera o en la cruz.
Pero, adiós: la noche vuela;
ya es tarde; basta por hoy.

Wagner

Oyéndote, como estoy,

pasara la noche en vela.
 Pero mañana son Pascuas,
y, si molestarte no es,
dos preguntas te haré, o tres,
que me tienen ahora en ascuas.
Amo el saber de tal modo,
que incesante por él lucho:
a tu lado aprendí mucho;
mas saberlo quiero todo.
(Sale.)

Fausto (solo)

Nunca abandona la esperanza al loco

soñador de quimeras; áurea mina
busca en la tierra ansioso: ¡qué fortuna,
si al cabo da con una sabandija!
Y en el propio lugar donde la excelsa
legión de los Espíritus me hostiga,
la voz sonó de tan pueril querella.
¡No importa! Tu presencia intempestiva,
hijo vulgar de la ralea humana,
no habrá sido enojosa ni perdida,
pues me arrancó el afán desesperado
que ya todo mi ser estremecía.
Fue la visión tan colosal, que halleme
pigmeo ante ella, y desmayé a su vista.
Hijo de Dios, al misterioso espejo
de la eterna verdad llegar quería,
y los terrenos lazos desatando,
aspiraba feliz la luz divina.
Superior al querub, en el regazo
del mundo derramé mi propia vida,
y mezclando mi sangre con su savia,
audaz soñé la Creación ya mía.
¡Estéril presunción! Una palabra
rayo fue que fulgura y me aniquila.
Medir no puedo mi poder contigo:
mis tristes voces a venir te obligan;
pero no te aprisionan. A tu lado,
¡cuán grande y cuán pequeño me sentía!
Pero a la suerte incierta de la triste
humanidad arrójanme tus iras.
¿Quién marcará mi norte y mi sendero?
¿Seguiré los impulsos que me guían?
Nuestras protestas, nuestros mismos actos
no detienen la marcha de la vida.
La más sublime aspiración del alma
siempre grosera escoria impurifica,
y al conquistar los bienes de la tierra,
juzgamos ilusión, sueño y mentira
el bien mayor. Si generoso arranque
al noble corazón da fuego y vida,
vertiginoso el torbellino humano
ese sagrado afán seca y marchita.
La eternidad a su ambición no basta
cuando rompe a volar la fantasía,
y el rincón más angosto es suficiente
para encerrar, al cabo, nuestras dichas.
La ingratitud el corazón taladra,
robándonos la paz y la alegría,
y el secreto pesar en él engendra.
La zozobra, con máscaras distintas,
se disfraza, y sin tregua nos persigue,
casa o corte, mujer, hijos, familia,
agua, fuego, puñal o bebedizo.
Y así el mortal, en ansiedad continua,
teme el peligro cuando no le amaga,
o llora el bien que disfrutar podría.
¿Semejante yo a Dios? ¡Vana quimera!
Semejante al gusano, que se abriga
en el polvo, y de polvo alimentado,
muerte le da y sepulcro quien lo pisa.
¿Polvo no son los viejos cachivaches
que llenan esa negra estantería,
y cuyo sucio fárrago en un mundo
de podredumbre y aridez me abisma?
¿Daranme lo que anhelo? Devorando
volumen tras volumen, ¿qué hallaría?
Que si algún hombre se creyó dichoso,
a sí mismos los más se martirizan.
¿Y tú, por qué, burlona calavera,
por esas huecas órbitas me miras?
¿Para decirme que, cual lucho y sufro,
tu espíritu pugnaba y padecía,
y sediento de luz, por senda errada
fue a sumergirse en las tinieblas frías?
¿Qué me decís, retortas y alambiques?
Mofa callada en la pared sombría
hacéis quizás a mi insensato duelo,
ruedas y tubos, frascos y vasijas.
A la puerta llegué: la vi cerrada;
la llave me faltaba, os la pedía;
y aún aquí, pavorosos instrumentos,
me tenéis a la puerta sin abrirla.
Naturaleza sus secretos guarda
misteriosa, velada en pleno día,
y no abrirán palancas ni ganzúas
lo que cerró implacable a nuestra vista.
¡Armatostes inútiles! ¡Legado
de mi padre y sus pálidas vigilias!
Pended ociosos del siniestro muro
que la lámpara ahumó, siempre encendida.
Más me valiera mi caudal escaso
gastar, que conservarlo con fatiga.
¿Para qué quieres la paterna herencia,
si no la gozas? Al presente aplica
las riquezas: es carga agobiadora
el oro, cuando no lo necesitas.
Mas ¿por qué allí claváronse mis ojos?
¿Es aquel frasco imán de mis pupilas?
¿Por qué me halagas, como en selva oscura
luna apacible que de pronto brilla?
Yo te saludo, mágica redoma,
y llego a ti con mano estremecida,
reverenciando en tu licor precioso
del humano saber las maravillas.
Esencia de los jugos que adormecen,
mezcla de las ponzoñas que asesinan,
muestra a tu dueño tu virtud suprema.
Al mirarte, mi afán se tranquiliza;
al asirte, mi angustia se modera,
y la interior tormenta se apacigua.
En alta mar mi espíritu navega;
su brillante cristal el aura riza,
y me llama el fulgor de nueva aurora
a nuevo puerto en encantada orilla.
Carro de fuego, que veloces alas
conducen por los aires, se aproxima:
nuevo camino me abrirá en los cielos
de donde mana la perpetua vida.
¿Podré gozar, gusano de la tierra,
el bien excelso, la inmortal delicia?
¡Podré, sí! ¿Qué me falta? Las espaldas
volver al sol que aquí nos ilumina;
abrir audaz la puerta misteriosa,
cuyo umbral nuestro pie temblando pisa.
Hora es ya de probar que emular puede
con la ensalzada majestad divina
la humana condición. No más espantos
al borde de esa inescrutable sima,
do la imaginación tiembla azorada
con los espectros que forjó ella misma,
y en cuya boca ante nosotros arden
las llamas del infierno maldecidas.
Voy a tentar el salto pavoroso,
aunque la oscura nada me reciba.
Sal otra vez del protector estuche,
sal, olvidada copa cristalina,
que un tiempo, en el festín de mis abuelos,
serenabas las frentes pensativas.
De mano en mano sin cesar pasabas,
y al pasar, cada cual, por ley antigua,
agotaba de un sorbo el hondo seno,
y las viejas historias esculpidas
en tu metal precioso relataba.
¡Cuántas veladas, al placer propicias,
de mi dichosa edad, tú me recuerdas!
Hoy no puedo ofrecerte, copa amiga,
a feliz comensal, ni en tu alabanza
aguzaré el ingenio, cual solía.
Pócima embriagadora el cáliz llena,
preparada por mí, por mí escogida.
¡Última libación, con toda el alma
te consagro a la aurora, al nuevo día!
(Lleva la copa a los labios.)